By Steve Kelley
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (and some of you may wish you had been), you know that our president has recently signed into law one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation ever enacted – or at least, enacted in most of our lifetimes. And whether you like it, hate it, or fall somewhere in between, you have to admit: there are going to be some dramatic changes around here, though it may take a while before the full impact is known.
Here at BCI, we’ve been working on something that we think could bring about some dramatic changes as well, at least for the credit union movement. Difference is, we don’t think it’s really going to take so long for these changes to make an impact (and we’re quite certain the impact will be a positive one!).
In our now-completed “Why conserve energy?” video series available at http://www.bcihq.com/videos/index.cfm, we’ve shared our view of most energy conservation programs: that they tend to focus too much on large buildings or new construction, ignoring 98% of existing commercial buildings because they are smaller than 100,000 square feet. And we’ve told you how much money could be saved by retro-commissioning those smaller buildings ($34 billion or more?) and specifically, how credit unions could save at least $23 million annually.
Well, the time for talk is past; it’s time we actually did something about making credit union buildings more energy-efficient. That’s why we’re now offering a suite of energy-efficiency services, including initial energy use audits (free in some cases), comprehensive retro-commissioning studies conducted by qualified engineers, and complete implementation of retro-commissioning projects. We’ll even offer to do some projects with no up-front cost, letting the energy savings pay for the work.
You see, we truly believe that credit unions can and should become the most energy-efficient and environmentally-responsible financial institutions in the country, all while saving millions of dollars in annual energy costs. In addition to the savings, we think the branding opportunities and potential goodwill benefits are enormous.
But it’s not what we think that matters – it’s what you think. So post a comment to let us know. And if you’re involved in operating credit union buildings, contact us at http://www.bcihq.com/contact/contact.cfm/ to see how we can help you save money by conserving energy. We’ll all be glad you did.